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Notice to industry – Service change for commercial importers or brokers who declare CFIA regulated imports to the CBSA

January 7, 2019 – Ottawa, ON – Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)

All customs brokers or importers who declare Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) regulated imports to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) should now be certified to use the Single Window Integrated Import Declaration (SW IID).

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) would like to formally announce a service change for commercial importers and brokers who use the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Other Government Department (OGD) Pre-Arrival Review System (PARS) and/or the OGD Release on Minimum Documentation (RMD) processes when declaring CFIA regulated imports to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

As of February 4, 2019, the CFIA's National Import Service Centre (NISC) will be reducing the hours of service for manually processing import declarations transmitted through the OGD-PARS and OGD-RMD processes.

Service hours for OGD-PARS and OGD-RMD submissions:

As of February 4, 2019 – 10am to 10pm EST, 7 days a week

As of February 25, 2019 – 11am to 8pm EST, 7 days a week

As of March 18, 2019 – 11am to 8pm EST, Monday to Friday

Automated recommendations for OGD-PARS and OGD-RMD submissions that do not require NISC manual review will continue to be processed 24/7 (maintenance not withstanding). With these adjusted service hours, importers and brokers can expect a two hour increase in the turn-around time for processing. The service hours for the SW IID will remain from 7am to 3am EST, 7 days a week for manual recommendations and 24/7 (maintenance not withstanding) for automated recommendations.

As of April 1, 2019, import transactions will no longer be processed in OGD-PARS or OGD-RMD neither manually nor automated. Import transactions will only be processed by the CFIA via the SW IID.

The benefits of using the SW IID system go beyond that of prioritized processing. Streamline your declaration process and experience the additional benefits of:

Reduced paper burden

Reduced time in processing one import transaction

A simplified import process

All importers and customs brokers who deal with CFIA regulated goods are encouraged to start using the IID today.

If you are not certified to use the IID yet, contact the CBSA's Technical Commercial Client Unit: